Manual man

The traffic fairies magic a clear path whilst approaching your favourite roundabout on an otherwise dull journey. Straight from 6th to 2nd, throttle blip, power through, 2nd to 3rd (why does that always feel the nicest?) then back to an otherwise mundane journey. Life’s good. Versus…

Into manual mode, sequentially click down faster than the gearbox will allow as you try to get to 2nd from 7th or even 8th gear before it’s time to accelerate. The revs go repeatedly up and down and the car is finally ready when you’re already past the good bit and frustrated. Or you could just let the car get itself into a jerky mess of random downshifts by itself.

Sequential paddleshifts on track are almost as much fun as a manual for me, but I think you missed a trick not comparing the 911s and M2s on the road (‘Automatic v Manual’, evo 285). Save for crawling in traffic, this is where the manual wins for me.

Steve James